Amid increasing calls for tighter gun laws, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is holding its annual meetings and exhibits in Indianapolis, the capital city of the Midwestern U.S. state Indiana, from Friday to Sunday.

On Tuesday, Indiana's Republican lawmakers passed a resolution honoring the NRA and its CEO, Wayne LaPierre, as the event is expected to generate tens of millions in economic impact for the city's tourism. 

It happened just one day after a mass shooting in Louisville, Kentucky. The shooting at the Old National Bank building downtown left five people dead, including the shooter, and eight others injured. 

Members of a national grassroots gun safety group "Moms Demand Action" came to the Statehouse to protest against the resolution, reported WTHR, a local television station in Indianapolis.

"It's really a painful reminder to all of the gun violence survivors in the state of Indiana and beyond, that the Republican Party in the state of Indiana doesn't care," Cathy Weinmann with "Moms Demand Action" told WTHR.

More protests are expected in the city this weekend, but NRA members and pro-gun politicians will likely to turn a deaf ear to them.

On March 27, six people including three children were killed at a school in Nashville, Tennessee. The NRA responded by calling for more security in schools, rather than restrictions on gun ownership.

With millions of members, the organization has a substantial budget which it uses to try and influence U.S. politicians on gun policy.

In 2021, it spent $4.2 million on lobbying, according to U.S. research firm OpenSecrets. Figures suggest that the NRA's lobbying expenditures had been increasing since 2000 and peaked in 2017 and 2018, surpassing $5 million.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will attend and address delegates at the event.

Mounting anxiety

A latest survey commissioned by U.S. security firm Evolv Technology found that 88 percent of Americans are anxious about gun violence and 85 percent believe gun violence is a problem in America.

The survey's results, released on Tuesday, also indicated that anxiety is high among parents, with three out of four parents saying that their child or children have some anxiety about school shootings.

Gun violence isn't slowing down in the country even though anxiety over the problem is piling up in public.

The U.S. has seen at least 146 mass shootings since January, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter.

Statistics from the nonprofit showed that more than 11,500 people have died from gun violence in the country this year, as of April 10, including nearly 400 children and teenagers.

Guns have become the biggest killer of children and teens under 18 in the U.S. since 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.